If you haven’t heard by now Top Chef contestant Spike has finally opened up his Good Stuff Eatery at 3rd and Penn Ave on Cap. Hill. Last night, I went and checked it out. First impression: Holy Crap! There’s a line!

The line is probably a temporary phenomena. Spike’s self-promotion skills were always as great as his cooking skills (maybe better). The hype for this restaurant was pretty steady leading up to the opening. Even the buns [”buttery soft,” “freshly baked Pennsylvania Dutch”) were hyped and you could find them at Safeway. If you stood in line, you were there for more than just a burger.

Spike’s Dad tried to make things go down easier. As we reached the front of the line, he greeted us and fellow Top Chef nerds with menus and some happy patter. But as he wound up to give his rap explaining the menu, a woman, middle-aged with short dark hair, interrupted him. She told him she didn’t want to hear his menu hype, she didn’t need it. He waved her off muttering something about everyone being too serious, that he had enough of serious in his life. Right on!

But the woman wasn’t having it. She looked at Spike’s Dad all serious and called him an “asshole.”

Exciting!

Read the rest of this entry »

Hunger! It must be satisfied. And occasionally, when we need food, we make a decision to spend a greater portion of our income than we normally might to get a meal. This is called “going out,” “eating out,” what have you. The expectation, for the most part, is that you, the diner, will be getting a better meal, a bigger meal, and a more filling meal.

Well, it may be time to curb our expectations. According to a recent article in the Washington Post, restaurants are “getting crafty” and looking for ways to manipulate recipes and use tricky plating techniques to cut costs. And damned if they didn’t get me twice recently, I believe. Saturday at brunch, at Domku in Petworth, the Nordic eggs benedict left me quite peckish (it was good, and would have been perfectly satisfying if I was ten). Other diners had similar complaints. And a recent salad at Cosi had about one emaciated buffalo wing’s worth of chicken in it. The entire salad, about 90 percent greens, didn’t even fill the bowl.

So, what am I getting at here? Why a brief roundup of decent, not terribly expensive buffets in the Washington D.C. area, of course. Suggestions come from Washington City Paper food critic Tim Carman and, you know, some friends that like to eat. The entire task of compiling these selections was easier said than done. Just check out this frustrated response to my buffet inquiry from City Paper food writing contributor Erin Zimmer: “Yeah, sometimes I wish I was in Vegas and could just cruise the cheap buffet scene. I used to hit up one on M Street at the late Mediterranean eatery, Little Cafe, where it was 9-bucks for Turkish pizzas, salads, some hot stuff, fruit. Decent, but gone, so that doesn’t help huh. Fogo de chao [is good] even though it’s a wallet-sucker.” Feel free to add suggestions in the comments section.

-Indique Heights, right by the Friendship Heights Metro stop, has a weekend buffet from noon to 3 pm on Saturdays and Sundays. The cost is $15 per person for adults and $9 per person for kids. Look for the mini dosa man, serving up made-to-order crepes with lentils and mildly spiced potatoes.

-Levi’s Port Cafe, near the Washington Navy Yard, has baked chicken, fried chicken, smothered pork chop, yams, potato salad, macaroni and cheese and cabbage, and none of the vegetables are cooked in meat, so there are vegetarian options. The price is $12.95.

-At Epicurean and Company, on Connecticut Ave just north of the Van Ness-UDC Metro stop, breakfast is $5.49 a pound, and lunch and dinner are $6.99 a pound. There’s a veggies and salad bar and continental cuisine: Chinese-American, European, sushi, deli section, plenty of variety. (This one might fall into the “cafeteria” category rather than the buffet class.)

The dish: N’oreo cookie

The location: Sticky Fingers Bakery, 1370 Park Road NW, (202) 299-9700.

The price: $1.75

The skinny: The other day I was eating some serious humble pie. It came in the form of a cookie—the Liz Lovely Cowboy Cookie, which I bought at my favorite patchouli patch of self-righteousness, the natural food co-op in Takoma Park. This tasty vegan treat, thick with rolled oats and rich with dark chocolate, made me think I had been a little rash in my previously published dismissal of Sticky Fingers Bakery. So I decided to give the Columbia Heights vegan sweets shop another try. My wife, Carrie, ordered a brownie with peppermint frosting, which she really liked (and I thought tasted like Dow Chemical and Altoids had gone into the baking business together). But I was quite fond of my order of milk and cookies. Well, at least the cookie part, which is the bakery’s riff on an Oreo. (An aside: I asked the guy behind the counter to explain the name. I knew it was a stupid question, and I got a stupid answer: “It’s like an Oreo, except it’s not an Oreo.”) My N’oreo featured two deep, dark chocolate cookies (made with margarine, not butter) pressing down on a thin, slightly goopy layer of mint frosting, which was strong but not overwhelming. What I liked about the cookie was its moistness and chewiness; unlike a real Oreo, it required no milk to soften it up. Which, in my case, was a good thing. First off, I couldn’t crack open my container of Silk soy milk and, second (and more important), the demon liquid inside tasted like watery beans. I wasn’t about to dunk my sweet and chocolaty cookie into that crap.

The dish: Pomodoro soup

The location: Domaso Trattoria Moderna in the Hotel Palomar Arlington, 1121 N. 19th St., Arlington, (703) 351-1211.

The price: $6

The skinny: Ordering tomato soup in winter is not the act of lunacy it would seem on the surface. Think about it: How many bowls of tomato soup have you wolfed down with a triangle of grilled cheese on a cold December day? Pappa al Pomodoro is a hearty Tuscan soup that, thankfully, requires neither fresh tomatoes nor fresh bread. The new (and hard-to-find) Domaso Trattoria Moderna in the Hotel Palomar Arlington—for the record, take the elevator to the fourth floor and keep turning right—does a terrific version of this traditional bread soup. Trust me, it’s far better than anything you ever heated up from a Campbell’s can as a kid. The soup is a thick, velvety puree—not a lumpy mass like many pomodoros—and it comes with concentric circles of olive oil and several housemade spinach gnocchetti. At first, the soup hits your tongue all smooth and slightly tart, but then the heat kicks in. It’s the kind of pepper blast that demands respect. It’s also the kind that warms you up inside, no matter how cold it is outside.

The Dish: Build-your-own salad

The Location: Chop’t Creative Salad Company

The Price: Varies

The Skinny: Let me just say this right from the start: I think salads are sides, not entrees. Sure, you can throw some grilled chicken or salmon on a pile of lettuce leaves and call it an entree if you want, but let’s not fool ourselves. The protein’s the star; the salad’s a bit player. Don’t get me wrong. I like a well-composed salad as much as the next person who secretly desires a burger. I enjoy salads made with fresh veggies, fruits, and cheeses, and I love how a hit of acid from a good vinaigrette can brighten everything in the bowl. Still, I don’t get the draw of these all-salad, all-the-time places like Sweetgreen in Georgetown and the new Chop’t Creative in Penn Quarter Chinatown. You might as well open an all-mashed potato joint, as far as I’m concerned. The draw of places like Chop’t is supposed to be its DIY approach, but frankly, I hate standing there at the counter, trying to compose a salad on the spot while feeling the impatient eye of both employee and awaiting customer burning a hole in the base of my skull. Besides, unlike at home where you can fix any mistake by adding or subtracting ingredients, you’re stuck with your salad, for better or for worse, once you’ve made an order. Case in point, I tried creating a Southwestern salad using mesclun greens as a base. From there, I added avocado, red onion, grape tomatoes, Jack cheese, smoked tofu, and, just because it sounded good, smoked bacon. My dressing of choice was a “sweet and smoky chipotle vinaigrette.” (Worth noting: Aside from the greens, you’re allowed only four ingredients, so I had to pay more for the extras, plus surcharges for the smoked tofu and bacon.) My chosen ingredients were then dumped onto a cutting board, where a guy took a mezzaluna to the pile and pulverized it into a thick dice. No longer were there large, cumbersome ingredients to deal with. I felt like a baby who needs his food cut up into small pieces. Once everything was dumped into a tall plastic bowl, I wandered off to a table to test my concoction. I wasn’t too impressed with myself. The bacon dominated the salad, which was my fault, but because all the ingredients were unceremoniously chopped and mixed together in the bowl, I had a hard time composing a bite. One forkful would have too much bacon, another too much mushy avocado. Plus, once you got past the first inch of salad, the whole thing started to resemble a soup, the result of too much dressing and too much “chop’ting.” I was forced to go around the corner to Five Guys and get that burger after all.

The Dish: Tagliolini alla G.W. Bush

The Location: Trattoria Italiana, 2651 Connecticut Ave. NW, (202) 332-2207

The Price: $18.99

The Skinny: If you’re looking for a way to fill up the time (still more than a year) that we have left, try contemplating how appropriate Trattoria Italiana’s tagliolini alla G.W. Bush is to its namesake. Both the chicken and shrimp wrapped in the pasta are a little on the bland side and not particularly convincing. And the dish will set you back enough—nearly a Jackson—to have you hoping for a tax cut. On the other hand, the dish as a whole, unlike its namesake, actually leaves both a pretty decent aftertaste and semi-fond memories. The menu lists a penne-and-portobello offering that I haven’t tried yet, but based solely on the fact that it’s named for a different George, I’m willing to give it a shot.

The dish: Oyster stew

The location: Franklins Restaurant, Brewery, and General Store, 5121 Baltimore Ave. Hyattsville, (301) 927-2740.

The price: $11

The skinny: Franklins is my kind of neighborhood joint. Housed in a historic corrugated-metal building in Hyattsville that once served as the community’s hardware store, Franklins maintains the spirit of the former occupant. I mean, the thing I love about hardware stores, particularly the old community ones that smell like machine-cut nails and fertilizer, is their insanely byzantine nature. You can turn down any aisle in a hardware store and find some ridiculous home or garden gadget that you never knew you needed. The menu at Franklins is much the same, stuffed with the strangest assortment of items, from wood-fired pizzas and burgers to satays, curried chicken and knockwurst. On my latest visit, I ordered the oyster stew appetizer. I typically prefer my bivalves straight-up—no lemon juice, horseradish or mignonette for me. (Seriously, would you add a squeeze of lemon to a Pinot, which, like an oyster, is a pure expression of its terroir?) But I digress. The oyster stew was far better than I ever expected it to be, yet another sign of how serious Franklins’ takes its task of feeding its many friends and neighbors. Okay, sure, the pale-yellow bowl sprinkled with a confetti of parsley shouts “festive” in shrill tones, but the stew itself speaks a more harmonious language. The oysters, poached in champagne, hold all their original brininess, which is perfectly complemented by the creamy soup spiked with fennel, Pernod, and generous amounts of pepper. The bacon-crumble garnish gives the dish extra depth and crunch. As I alternate between the stew and my “Rubber Chicken Red Ale,” a heady, house-made brew with this sweet rumlike flavor, I can’t help but think that Franklins understands what it means to be a gracious neighbor, not just a neighborhood restaurant.

The Dish: The avocado, nori, and scallion sandwich

The Location: Le Pain Quotidien, 2815 M Street NW, (202) 315-5420

The Price: $8.95

The Skinny: Le Pain Quotidien is an international chain of casual bakeries and cafes that specialize in fresh bread. Pain was originally launched about 17 years ago in Brussels by chef Alain Coumont who, according to company legend, “spent several years perfecting the taste, and so little by little the unmistakable taste of the original daily bread (’le pain quotidien’) was created.” Yeah, that’s fascinating, but not as fascinating as this: How using the French spelling of “the daily bread” obliterates any overt Christian interpretation, even if the long communal tables inside the new Georgetown location suggest that you should “break bread” together. A friend and I did exactly that over a recent lunch–and we didn’t even pray first. We instead took a leap of faith on a pair of sandwiches, she the chicken curry and me the avocado with nori seaweed and scallions. I was delighted when the waiter brought out our plates. My sandwich looked more like a salad, or even a tea sandwich on steroids; single slices of house-made wheat bread were buried under crescent moons of avocado, diced tomatoes, various lettuces, ringlets of scallion, toasted sesame seeds, and lots and lots of tiny slivers of nori. The final grace note were two triangles of dried nori standing in the middle of the plate, like bat wings in mid-flap. The sandwich looked too pretty to eat. When I did bite into the concoction, I was surprised at how bland all those ingredients turned out to be. Or maybe I should say how subtle they were. The creaminess of the avocado tended to dominate the nuttiness of the sesame seeds, the mineral flavor of the nori, and the…well, the abolute nothingness of the out-of-season tomatoes. This was one of those occasions when I was glad there was salt on the table. A few shakes, and everything was fine. The magic of sodium chloride enhanced and combined the flavors. Who knows, maybe it was a miracle?

The Dish: broccoli-and-cheddar soup in a sourdough-bread bowl

The Location: Panera Bread, 4238 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, (703) 527-8701

The Price: $4.99

The Skinny: When I wandered into the Ballston location of Panera Bread last night, I first set my sights on a sandwich. Perhaps because I was looking to cure some lingering grumpiness over the weather—I ended up reaching for my winter jacket last night, for the first time this fall—I scrapped that plan when I saw that they offered soup (your choice) in a bowl carved out of sourdough bread. Sure, soup in a bread bowl is a simple idea, and it isn’t exactly a new one. But Panera’s cheaply priced version didn’t disappoint. The cheddar-and-broccoli soup I chose offered up broth that was thick, filling, and (natch) cheddary. As a whole, the dish followed a welcome (if predictable) trajectory—it started out as soup, became a doughier soup as I worked my way into the bowl, and then finally turned into a hollowed out chunk of bread, which I tore through, enjoying the tangy sourdough.

The Dish: Marvin Burger

The Location: Marvin, 2007 14th St., (202) 797-7171

The Price: $15

The Skinny: The manager at Marvin introduces himself and promptly takes a seat with my wife, Carrie, and I. He wants to know how we heard about the restaurant and lounge, which was recently opened by the same folks—including Thievery Corporation’s Eric Hilton—responsible for the 18th Street Lounge, Dragonfly, and Local 16. I tell him that I had seen the small shitstorm that his $15 hamburger created on the Prince of Petworth blog, which immediately causes him to start justifying the price of the sandwich. It’s all organic Angus beef, he says. It has Chimay cheese on it. It’s served on an onion brioche bun. It comes with chanterelles. It massages your hands while you hold it. Okay, I made the last one up, but you get his point. Much of the burger’s costs are sandwiched between those brioche buns. I tell him that the main reason I’m here is to sample his controversial burger, prepared in chef Jimmy Claudio’s kitchen. The manager says he looks forward to my reaction. Things start off poorly when the burger arrives: It’s overcooked. I asked for medium rare; I got something bordering on well-done. The grill flavor is decent enough, but the large, bready brioche bun overwhelms everything, as if you’re trying to chew through cotton to reach the main ingredients. Between the dry, extremely salty burger and the dry bun, I’m dying for something moist and juicy. Good thing I have a beer handy and three different dipping sauces, including a fantastic curry aioli, for the hand-cut fries that accompany the burger. When the manager returns for the verdict, I give him the short version: The burger’s overcooked and the bun’s a poor partner. He seems less disappointed than determined to fix the problem. He tells me he’ll investigate the bun issue, and he walks immediately to the kitchen to talk with a cook. I like his style, even if I don’t like his overpriced burger.

The Dish: Philly cheesesteak sandwich

The Location: Philadelphia Water Ice Factory, 2620 Georgia Ave. NW, (202) 483-1429

The Price: $8.50 for a whole sandwich; $5 for half.

The Skinny: A second D.C. outlet of the small Philadelphia Water Ice Factory chain recently opened on an elevated porch on Georgia Ave. NW, just across the street from Howard University. It’s a great perch for people watching—and for a Philly cheesesteak. For my money, the Factory’s version is every bit as good as the wiz wit (a cheese-whiz steak with onions, for those novices in the audience) that I recently had at Pat’s King of Steaks in South Philly. And I didn’t even have to stand in line for this one. The Factory actually buys its rolls from the famed Amoroso Baking Co. in Philly; it also chops its rib-eye steak finely, as is the tradition in South Philly (if not the tourist traps Geno’s and Pat’s). Sitting on a stool and jaw-jacking with Russell Price Jr., publisher of the Washington Business Guide, I feel happy to be alive. I’m listening to Price’s tales of growing up in Philly while snarfing down my wiz wit, enjoying the soft, gooey, peppery decadence of every bite. I’m doing this almost in defiance of my new friend. I ask him how the Factory’s version rates. He says it’s good all right, but not the real deal. Everyone’s a critic.

The Dish: yum ped yang

The Location: Neramitra, 2200-I Crystal Drive, Arlington (703) 413-8886

The Price: $7.95 at dinner

The Skinny: Heading to Crystal City’s Neramitra last night, I wasn’t in the mood for anything particularly spicy. At the same time, it had been too long since I’d had duck. So after settling into the restaurant’s outdoor seating area, I decided to take a chance on Neramitra’s spicy yum ped yang, essentially a duck salad. And when I tore into the duck meat, I wasn’t (thank God) overwhelmed. Since the dish’s spiciness merged well with the flavor of the crispy duck pieces, I ate happily. And in relative comfort. But that spiciness seemed more prominent when I tackled the rest of the dish, which had me reaching for my water glass. I eventually did get used to it—this afternoon, as I picked through the leftovers. But next time I’m at Neramitra, I should be able to enjoy the whole thing.

The dish: Tortelli di zucca

The location: Spezie, 1736 L St. NW, (202) 467-0777

The price: $16

The skinny: Owner Enzo Livia closed Spezie for two months this summer to give his downtown eatery a little more air: The monolithic wine room has been torn down in favor of a communal bar table and more open space, glorious open space! But Livia also used the time to conceive and develop a menu with his new chef, the well-seasoned Cesare Lanfranconi, formerly the top toque at Ristorante Tosca, where he’s still a partner. The changes are subtle but significant: If Spezie was once the best well-kept secret of D.C.’s Italian dining scene, then it’s now posed to be one of the best, period. The tortelli di zucca, a new pasta on Lanfranconi’s fall menu, offers early evidence. The Northern Italian dish typically screams in your face with its blunt combination of roasted winter squashes, spicy mostarda di cremona, salty Parmigiano, amaretti powder, and aromatic nutmeg. Lanfranconi has muted the shrill mostarda, so that it registers more as sweet hits of acid rather than fruity blasts of mustard-seed heat. The chef also plays up the textural contrasts between his almost mousse-like filling and his pleasantly pliant pasta. The final application of a sage-butter sauce seems to serve as Lanfranconi’s main equalizer here: It prevents the roasted winter squashes—the chef prefers butternut squash and kabocha—and other sweet ingredients from sending you into sugar shock. The dish, if I had to hazard a guess, is a smart, slightly Americanized version of an Italian classic, or maybe it’s just an early mistake in the kitchen. Whatever the case, I have to say I’d personally like a little more nasal-clearing mostarda in my pasta.

The Dish: Banh mi thit nguôi

The Location: Song Que, 6773 Wilson Blvd., Falls Church, (703) 536-7900

The Price: $2.50

The Skinny: Back in a day, one of the great things about living in Houston was that its Vietnamese community was located just outside of downtown. You could sneak out of the office for lunch, grab a mouthwatering, pâté-smeared banh mi sandwich for $2, and give Mickey D the finger on the way back to work, knowing you ate something far fresher, tastier, and cheaper than anything you could buy at the Golden Arches. To replicate the experience in the District, you have to take the Metro to Wheaton or drive the ol’ Global Warming Machine to the Eden Center in Falls Church, which of course pretty much doubles the cost of your sandwich and leaves a Shaq-like carbon footprint. Is the banh mi from Song Que worth all the gas-guzzling, time-consuming effort? To be frank, no. But if you’re in the area, by all means stop by the narrow Vietnamese deli, which the Lai family opened five years ago next to its other operation, Huong Que/Four Sisters. Song Que’s cold-cut combo is slightly out of balance to my palate—too much emphasis on the marinated, julienned veggies, and not enough on the head cheese, pâté, and ham. But, still, the crunchy-spongy baguette yields nicely with each bite, and its contents give you what you want from banh mi: heat, sweetness, and a blast of fresh, aromatic goodness from the cilantro, which fools you into thinking you’re eating lighter than you really are. Of course, given the paucity of pork in this version, you may actually be eating pretty light.

The Dish: Roma tomato and artichoke pizza slice

The Location: Alberto’s, 2438 18th St. NW, (202) 332-2234

The Price: $4.50

The Skinny: When it comes to pizza, I’ve traditionally preferred toppings derived from fauna (pepperoni, cheese, sausage) to those from flora. Just cheese and pepperoni sounds fine to me, whether it’s before or after 9 o’clock. But the tomato-and-artichoke slice I tried last night from Alberto’s in Adams Morgan—kid brother of the Dupont Circle location, which for now is closed following a fire—may make me branch out a bit more. And not just because I like the geometrical simplicity of its carryout packaging. (Seriously—take a breath and admire the way the slice’s near right angle fits the takeout box. The wannabe mathemetician in me was trying to recall those high-school geometry formulas.) No, the flavor was satisfying. The artichokes didn’t seem to do much other than contribute to the slice’s aura of healthiness, but I enjoyed the flavor imparted by the cool, juicy, and fresh-tasting tomatoes, and I found that the light-but-still-chewy thin crust matched well with the light, summery feel of the toppings.